Bank of America gives CEO dollars 50m bonus amid PR strife

March 27, 2000
by AIMEE GROVE

SAN FRANCISCO: Just months after stirring up negative publicity for
its ban on ATM usage by non-customers and still smarting from the uproar
over its now discontinued ’Adopt-an-ATM’ program, Bank of America once
again has landed in PR hot water.

SAN FRANCISCO: Just months after stirring up negative publicity for
its ban on ATM usage by non-customers and still smarting from the uproar
over its now discontinued ’Adopt-an-ATM’ program, Bank of America once
again has landed in PR hot water.

SAN FRANCISCO: Just months after stirring up negative publicity for

its ban on ATM usage by non-customers and still smarting from the uproar

over its now discontinued ’Adopt-an-ATM’ program, Bank of America once

again has landed in PR hot water.

The North Carolina-based bank, which was acquired by NationsBank in

1998, made front-page headlines in the San Francisco Chronicle earlier

this month after awarding a dollars 50 million bonus to chairman and CEO

Hugh McColl in 1999 - despite the bank’s disappointing earnings and

plummeting stock price.

The story, which quoted only anonymous sources, noted that McColl’s

bonus was meted out despite stringent cost-cutting by the rest of the

bank’s employees and 19,000 layoffs companywide since the 1998 merger.

Meanwhile, a scant two paragraphs of the two-page article surveyed the

bank’s rationale behind McColl’s bonus. The only comment from B of A

spokesperson Robert Stickler was that the company could not speak about

the award before it was filed with the SEC.

At least one local crisis communications expert said that there isn’t

much the bank can do to alleviate the situation.

’Part of it is that they have a reporter covering them who is

distrustful of large financial institutions and who has very good inside